Helpbot is one of the most helpful player made features in-game. Many new players have no idea what it is or how to use it or who is behind it. You may assume that Funcom is behind Helpbot, but you'd be wrong. Helpbot is a 100% player-based initiative originally created by Beaker with help from the AO Community, but its functions have grown.

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The bot is a program logged into the AO chat servers making it available in-game. This allows Helpbot to help you from any location you may be at in AO.

Helpbot has a nice list of useful commands, to get a complete list just /tell helpbot help in your chat window.

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Game Information

/tell Helpbot level <level>
This will tell you who you can team and PvP with level wise (you can't team with people too far from your level be it above or below yours). Additionally the bot will also show what QL missions you can do on Rubi-Ka.

This is a very useful command when trying to find members to team with, or when considering who you can PvP with. It will also make it easier on you to find items you want to blitz.

Note: Blitzing means that instead of fighting through an entire mission, your goal is just to get the mission reward by calming mobs or just running to the end of the mission.

/tell Helpbot OE XX
This command does a fast calculation to show you if you're able to use a weapon/armor at 100%.

Note: For armor or a weapon to work at 100% you need to have more than 75% of the skills required to use it. This means that you can use items to buff your abilities and/or a Trader to raise them further with a wrangle nanoformula, equip the item and then after you go back to your normal skills level you may be still able to use them at 100% of their defensive/offensive stats. The OE command will help you asses if you are able to do this...

/tell Helpbot Dyna level [maxlevel] [location]
This command will bring up a listing of which dyna camps are approximate the level you specify, between the two levels you specify, or can be found in the specified zone.

/tell Helpbot whereis location
This command will display information regarding various zones and locations that you specify.

/tell Helpbot npc name
This command will display information on a particular NPC, where he or she is located, and what quest that NPC is associated with. Alternatively you can ask helpbot: /tell help quest name and it will return NPCs associated with the quest you specified.

/tell Helpbot bio drop-bio-material-here
This command will display what the bio material that you just picked is used for (armor, weapons, AI city buildings, etc...)

/tell Helpbot basebuffs /tell Helpbot skillbuffs
These commands will display a listing of which professions can buff what abilities and skills respectively.

/tell Helpbot calc your+math+here
Helpbot can be your calculator. If you're not good at doing math in your head, helpbot is here for you.

/tell Helpbot trickle skill amount
Helpbot can also tell you how much trickle-down you will receive if you increase one of the specified abilities by some amount.

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Team Management and Loot Distribution

/tell Helpbot flip
With this command the bot will practically flips a coin for you and tells you whether you got heads or tales.

/tell helpbot roll <x> <y>
This command makes a random roll between the two numbers you enter. For example if you type "/tell helpbot roll 1 6" then Helpbot will randomly choose between the numbers 1 through 6. This is used by teams to decide who gets some phat loot.

/tell helpbot verify
Both flip and roll commands give you a verification code you could give to fellow players and if they type "/tell helpbot verify <number>" helpbot will tell them the result that you got. Also there is a timeout feature to lower the chance of someone cheating and rolling numbers too fast so they get the number they want. It's not a fool proof method, but it's a fairly trusted feature used by players on a daily basis. You can also just type "/tell helpbot verify" and it will list the latest rolls made by players.

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Player Information

/tell Helpbot whois <player>
This will give you a neat rundown of the character that you type, including level, alien level, faction (clan/neutral/omni) and also will provide the name of the organization he is in (if he is in a guild) and the rank he holds in the org.

/tell Helpbot is <player>
This will tell you whether or not the specified player is currently on-line.

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Notes on Helpbot

Helpbot has tons of other features, both fun and useful, including listings of what loot AI generals drop, what pocketbosses drop what symbiants, and quick-lists of settings that you can click on to turn up or down your game client's graphics settings to reduce lag.

Helpbot used to report information about items, but now Itemsbot has taken over that responsibility. To look up a particular item, send a tell to Itemsbot: /tell itemsbot QL name of item

If you don't get an instant reply, it probably means that Helpbot has a long line of /tells. I suggest you have some patience and wait a bit, or try again a few minutes later.

There are very rare times when Helpbot may not be available in-game, in which case you are likely to receive a 'user is not logged in' and/or ''user inbox is full' message due to the thousands of players using the bot..